Although medical marijuana was a hot topic at Tuesday’s City Council meeting the subject was barely a bump in the road among the 11 residents attending City Manager Andy Barton’s Community Forum Thursday.

Dave Ballweg, a Mesquite business owner, asked Barton why the city took so long re-addressing the issue.

“Don’t get me wrong, I am dead set against this,” said Ballweg, who also spoke Tuesday at the council meeting. “But, how are we supposed to come up with something beneficial for Mesquite with so little time?”

Richard Secrist, community development director for the city, answered Ballweg that the city had to wait for the state to set its regulations before anyone, let alone Mesquite, could move forward.

“Then we looked at (other) cities and counties and went from there,” he said.

Resident John Williams, who also addressed the City Council Tuesday, asked at the forum what the process was in writing the ordinances since no one in Mesquite was able to look at or vote on anything in them before Tuesday night’s meeting.

“Who made those decisions?” he asked. “I think there were things put in there that were someone’s personal wishes.”

Williams said there was a local business owner who had been interested in opening her own dispensary but the ordinances shut the door to that opportunity.

She said drafts could be changed to what the people believe meets Mesquite’s needs.

Secrist added the development services department drafted the ordinances, a typical move for the city.

Karen Beardsley asked whether grow and dispensary buildings had to be together.

“No,” Secrist explained. “The feeling is that they should be together but it’s not required.”

Barton told forum attendees the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) is working to give control of Riverside Road to Mesquite but the road needed work first.

“We would have to pay for the improvements?” Beardsley asked.

“No, we want the state to pay before we take over,” Barton said.

Bill Tanner, public works director, said before the city takes control of Riverside, it wants the road overlayed and resealed; manhole covers brought up to grade; striping redone, and electrical conduits installed for future stop lights at Hafen and Riverside. At the very least the city wants NDOT to fund the projects.

“We’ve got it down to what we believe is acceptable for us to take over, now it’s a matter of whether or not NDOT wants to take on that cost,” he said.

Tanner said the city already sweeps the street because NDOT won’t do it more than twice a year.

The likelihood of NDOT doing it is high, Barton added, because the organization is looking to save money in the long run by dumping what it can on cities and counties.

Virgin Valley Elementary School is also getting a small parking lot on Old Mill Road that will allow parents to pick up their children without clogging the street to the point of it being a traffic hazard, Tanner said.

The project is expected to take about two to three weeks, he said.

Talk of roads sparked another debate on who to go to about changing the speed limit on Pioneer Boulevard.

Residents said motorists following the mandated 35 mile per hour speed limit were few and far between and the city should look into it.

Tanner said, however, the state engineer usually dictates speed limits based on what is safe on the roads when they are designed.